Launching Koalafi’s mobile customer experience
Snapshot
Role: Senior Product Designer
Product: Koalafi mobile app (iOS and Android)
Timeline: 7 months (MVP)
Scope: MVP definition, UX/UI design, mobile design system, beta testing, launch and post-launch improvements
I helped define the mobile app MVP and drive its design execution, taking initial design foundations through to a complete customer servicing experience and launch.
About Koalafi
Koalafi is a US-based fintech that provides lease-to-own financing, helping 2M+ customers access the products they need through flexible payment options. Working with a network of more than 28,000 retail partners, Koalafi enables customers to shop for furniture, appliances, electronics, mattresses and other important purchases, both online and in-store.
Its services are designed for consumers who may not have access to traditional financing options or prefer an alternative way to spread the cost of a purchase. Koalafi partners with retailers to make these financing options available at the point of purchase, while providing customers with digital tools to manage their leases, payments and shopping experience.
Context & Problem
Customers primarily managed their leases through Koalafi’s existing web portal. Bringing this experience to mobile created an opportunity to make account servicing more accessible and convenient.
The challenge was to translate essential servicing journeys into a mobile-first experience while balancing customer needs, financial information, legal requirements, fraud considerations and delivery constraints.
Core functions required:
Viewing lease details and upcoming payments.
Viewing customer profile details.
Accessing a shopping experience for in-store and online stores.
Making an instant or scheduled one-off payment.
My Role & Team
I partnered with my Design Manager to establish the initial direction and define the MVP. Building on some of the initial screens they had designed, I extended the experience across the remaining journeys, refined existing designs and worked through the details required to take the product to release.
The core delivery team included a Product Manager, Engineering Manager, Design Manager, Senior Product Designer (me), four engineers and three QA testers. I also worked closely with Legal, Marketing and a group of customers recruited for beta testing.
My responsibilities included:
Helping define the MVP and prioritise customer journeys.
Completing and refining UX/UI designs across the app.
Adapting and implementing the mobile design system of patterns and components.
Collaborating with Legal on screen designs and customer-facing content.
Preparing app beta communications, instructions and feedback surveys.
Supporting engineering handover, implementation and QA.
Customer Research & Key Insights
As part of ongoing customer discovery, we spoke with customers during regular fortnightly phone calls to better understand their experiences, questions and frustrations when managing their leases.
A recurring pain point from the existing web portal was confusion around payment timing. Customers didn't always understand when their payments would be processed, particularly when a scheduled payment fell around weekends or banking holidays. Payments could be processed on a business day rather than the date customers expected, and the way this was communicated wasn't always clear enough.
These conversations highlighted an opportunity to improve how payment timing was explained, making important information more visible and helping customers understand what to expect.
We also identified confusion among customers who made additional payments towards their leases and mistakenly believed these would replace their upcoming scheduled payment.
Both insights informed decisions around payment information and customer communications within the mobile experience.
MVP Definition & Experience Strategy
The MVP focused on giving existing customers a straightforward way to access and manage their leases on mobile.
This meant prioritising essential servicing journeys, adapting the existing web experience for smaller screens and making deliberate decisions about what needed to be included at launch versus what could follow.
The Shop experience was one of those decisions. Rather than rebuild the marketplace as part of the initial release, the MVP provided a link out to Koalafi’s existing, more limited web-based Shop experience.
Making the customer profile read-only in the app was another similar decision. Linking through to the web portal for profile management allowed us to maintain focus. These were deliberate trade-offs based on available development capacity and the need to keep the mobile MVP focused on core lease servicing.
It allowed the team to deliver the mobile app sooner while leaving room to develop a more integrated marketplace and profile experience in subsequent releases.
Core MVP functions:
Viewing lease details and upcoming payments.
Viewing customer profile details.
Accessing a shopping experience for in-store and online stores.
Making an instant or scheduled one-off payment.
Home
Lease details
Profile
Shop
Make a payment
Payment complete
Strategic Decisions
1. Making lease information easier to understand
Lease details required careful consideration around how information was presented and prioritised. I worked through design iterations and stakeholder feedback to improve the hierarchy and presentation of key information, balancing customer comprehension with business and legal requirements.
3. Payment timing understanding
Our regular fortnightly conversations with customers highlighted that payment processing dates weren't always understood.
To address this, I designed a bottom-sheet as well as a customer email clarifying payment processing rules. The bottom-sheet was accessed from a learn more link displayed prominently on Lease detail screens, setting expectations at the point customers needed the information.
2. Additional payments confusion
Customer support was receiving calls from customers who had made an additional payment towards their lease and mistakenly believed it would replace their next scheduled payment.
To address this, I designed an explanatory bottom-sheet within the context of the payment flow.
MVP Scope & Trade-offs
Another important decision related to authentication. Given fraud concerns, access was restricted to existing customers using their established Koalafi login credentials from the web portal. Open registration was not included.
I worked with Product, Legal and Engineering to resolve design trade-offs, refine the experience and ensure the MVP remained focused on the essential customer journeys.
Delivery & Launch
I worked closely with four engineers and three QA testers throughout implementation, resolving design questions and reviewing the experience as it came together.
Legal collaboration was particularly important, with screen designs and customer-facing content reviewed to ensure the experience met requirements.
To gather feedback ahead of release, we recruited a beta group through an email campaign. I designed and wrote the invitation communications, prepared TestFlight installation instructions, drafted follow-up messages and created a survey to collect feedback from participants.
Following beta testing and refinement, the app launched on iOS and Android from 14 October 2025 and was gradually rolled out to 100% of existing customers.
Results
(As of Nov 2026)
4.9
star rating on both Apple App Store and Google Play
100%
rollout to existing customers
Reflections
Design for scale
The project reinforced the importance of designing the complete customer experience, not just the interface. That included authentication decisions, financial content, customer support considerations, beta communications and the details of how information reached customers outside the app.
Make the right call
It also demonstrated the value of making deliberate MVP trade-offs. By keeping the initial Shop and Profile experience simple, the team could focus on launching core functionality.
Customer clarity first
Most importantly, the work established a mobile servicing experience that could continue to evolve around real customer behaviours and needs.